Last year (heh—I can say that now 😊) I realized something. In addition to marketing just being terrible in all its existence, I wasn’t ready to do it. At all. But at some point, the lightbulb finally decided to stop flickering and came on full blast: why wasn’t I diving forward with marketing gumph? I was still learning my product.

Before any company can tell the world about its product, the company should probably have an airtight understanding of what it produces, why it’s being made and who needs it. I knew NONE OF THESE THINGS. I just liked the product. I just liked writing.

And that’s all I’ve been focused on. Product creation. All these years I just wanted to make the product, and because I’ve still been learning it, how to make it and what I want to accomplish with it, I gave no thought to how to tell people about it. Or that it existed. Again, because I was still LEARNING MY PRODUCT. I only shout because I’m yelling at myself so I don’t feel shitty that this writing journey is taking so long. All this time I’ve been angry at myself for doing absolutely no marketing/zero/zilch when I couldn’t do it because I didn’t know what I was advertising.

It’s taken me three separate full projects to understand a few things:

• Every genre has some subplot of romance
• Every story has some element of escape
• Every project has some point in which the heroine and hero are separated (sometimes for a long amount of time)

I’m basing this on my Arizal Wars series, my Better Than This series, and an unpublished dark-urban fantasy romance, Rozmarie & Josiah. It’s taken me these three separate projects (and countless short stories) to made me realize what kind of writer I am/and for whom I write. I love magic. I love adventure. I (obviously) love romance and all the heartache it brings. I love secrets and prophecies and promises with different cultures and worlds. I love the ability to escape, which is why I’ve decided to use the word in my new author brand (post with new tagline coming soon!!!) Ladies and gentlemen, may I present 2019 as the year to:

Finally Get Off My Butt and Do Some Branding and Marketing

That’s right. Whereas 2018 was the year to write and publish three books (because I’m crazy), 2019 will be the year I’m getting a tagline, a logo and all sorts of professional looking shit because it’s about that time in my career: time to take it to the next level. Now that I know what I write, I have to figure out how to tell the world.

Welcome 2019. I hope you and I see eye to eye on things 😊

What about you? What does your 2019 look like? Any specific goals or general tasks you want to accomplish? If you could focus your energy on any one thing, what would it be?

Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) is a monthly blog hop for writers at all levels to share their fears and insecurities in a safe and encouraging place. Please drop by and say hi to Alex Cavanaugh who started this nifty concept in bringing us all together.